Obama Doubles Down on ISIS/ISIL Lie, No News Company Believes Him, Video

What would happen if a US President said something, and no news company believed him?

That is not an academic question, it is happening right now and on a life and death issue.

As you see below in a video, not only did Obama send out Josh Earnest to lie about Obama calling ISIS/ISIL a JV team, Junior Varsity nobodies not to be overly concerned about, Obama doubled down personally in an interview with NBC with the same lie. No one has believed him in the news media that we could find, and we searched all the major news companies. Not even MSNBC has come to his defense.

PolitiFact, widely seen as a political ally of Obama, said this on the newest lie by Obama:

President Barack Obama granted an exclusive sit down to Meet the Press for new host Chuck Todd’s inaugural show.

As expected, Todd and Obama had a long discussion about the administration’s strategy for dealing with Islamic State, the terrorist group responsible for the beheading of two American journalists, with Obama stating “we’re going to defeat them.”

Todd then remarked that Obama’s response was a “long way from when you described them as a JV team.”

“Was that bad intelligence or your misjudgment?” Todd asked.

“Keep in mind I wasn’t specifically referring to (Islamic State),” Obama replied. “I’ve said that, regionally, there were a whole series of organizations that were focused primarily locally, weren’t focused on homeland, because I think a lot of us, when we think about terrorism, the model is Osama bin Laden and 9/11.”

Is Obama editing his remarks or did Todd misrepresent what Obama said? We decided to take a look.

Critics have maligned Obama’s “JV” remark in recent weeks as the Islamic State continues to wreak havoc throughout Syria and Iraq. The origin of the comment is a New Yorker profile of Obama by editor David Remnick. The New Yorker published Remnick’s profile on Jan. 27, 2014. In it, he wrote, “In the 2012 campaign, Obama spoke not only of killing Osama bin Laden; he also said that Al Qaeda had been ‘decimated.’ I pointed out that the flag of Al Qaeda is now flying in Fallujah, in Iraq, and among various rebel factions in Syria; Al Qaeda has asserted a presence in parts of Africa, too.”

Obama responded: “The analogy we use around here sometimes, and I think is accurate, is if a jayvee team puts on Lakers uniforms that doesn’t make them Kobe Bryant.” (For the non-sports fan, JV stands for junior varsity, and it usually means a high school or college’s secondary team.)

Remnick confirmed to PolitiFact that the interview took place on Jan. 7 and he was referencing a specific event that had happened just days before: the overtaking of the Iraq city of Fallujah on Jan. 3.

Our ruling

Obama said his JV comment “wasn’t specifically referring to ISIL.” He was not specifically asked about Islamic State, but it’s pretty clear this is the group that was being referenced in the conversation. The transcript backs this up, as do news events from the time of the discussion.